A fragment of something Jesus said, “… but the labourers are few …” had been coming to thought for a couple of days. Finally, I turned to the whole statement in the Gospel of Luke: “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest” (10:2).
The words were certainly familiar, but suddenly I realized I’d been skimming over those first five words. This time, however, the words might as well have been in billboard-sized letters. “The harvest truly is great,” Jesus had said. There wasn’t any question about the size of the harvest or when it would come about. It was already there, and it was major! Obviously that’s why more workers were needed. Jesus was using a metaphor to which his listeners could readily relate. But he was, in fact, teaching something utterly new, something beyond any human circumstance to limit. The harvest he was talking about was a harvest of such infinite divine goodness that it not only uplifted lives 2,000 years ago but would do the same whenever it was glimpsed.
Mary Baker Eddy, who opened up the Science of Christ to this age, explains the immediacy of God-given good. Paraphrasing Jesus, she writes, “… while ye say, There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest, I say, Look up, not down, for your fields are already white for the harvest ….” She adds, “and gather the harvest by mental, not material processes” (Unity of Good, pp. 11–12).
The question is, Where are we looking? Have we been looking down into a materialistic culture, medical domination, a massive majority of people too busy to dig deep spiritually anyway? Have we been focused on too few workers? Or are we having the eye-opening experience of abounding good—good as the natural result of finding our life to be in Spirit and actually spiritual, not material. Jesus’ total assurance of abundant good was evidenced in his command to “cast the net on the right side” (John 21:6) and in his instruction to “look up, not down” (see John 4:35) for the harvesting of this very great divine reality.
At the start of Christian Science it surely wasn’t the number of workers people were considering. They were profoundly moved—and healed—by the new view of themselves and others as spiritual, sustained and governed entirely by divine Love. Even a degree of awakening to this vast spiritual reality is enough to bring Christian Science healing in the midst of imposed medical scenarios. It can lift members out of feeling church as a burden, can turn doubts into new joy in feeling that God really is All-in-all. These are the effects of powerful quickening by Spirit itself.
It’s happening now, in fresh evidence of Christ-healing. It’s showing up now in the renewed vision and vitality of a Church that has its spiritual foundation on the rock of Christ-healing and whose future is assured by one, all-encompassing divine reality.
